Order
by Quill To Parchment
Summary: 1978. Keith Moon of The Who died in Curzon Place Mayfair London. The Yorkshire Ripper reared his ugly head. The muggle-born Myers were brutally murdered and nailed to their front door. James Potter, Lily Evans, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew graduated. But five months before that, The Order of the Phoenix was formed.
1. Prologue

**Hello,**

**I hope to take this story pretty far, though I have yet to sketch out a proper plot. The next chapter will prove to be more interesting if not this one :)**

**DISCLAIMER: This story was posted on another fanfiction account, but I made a few changes and posted it here instead. All characters are owned by the lovely J.K. Rowling.**

**Reviews are much appreciated!**

**Cheers,**

**Quill to Parchment**

* * *

"Area under inspection. Unit standby.

The broken, mechanical voice descended into a haze of static before the hand-held device from which it emanated fell dormant with a *beep*. Hooked onto the belt-loop of a pair of faded denim jeans, it hung where it was momentarily before a masculine hand descended on it, tugging it off of its resting place on the man's hip. It was lifted up to a face that was hidden in the dark overcast shadows of a large-brimmed hat, perky at the edges and a fresh beige hue. Dark golden hair spilled out haphazardly from underneath it, curling at the base of the man's neck where his upturned coat collar collected the undergrowth of locks.

"Roger that."

The voice that spoke from under the hat was a deep whisper, quiet and confident. The silence of the area amplified the man's words, carrying them further down the dank alley with the stale breeze that blew the smell of rotting trash up and down the walls of the two five-storey buildings on either side. The lights in the musty windows up to three storeys high were off. Two alleys down, a tussle broke out amongst the domestic felines, and loud yowling rent the stillness of the soggy, unimpressive night.

The man tucked the black walkie-talkie pack into the loop of his jeans. Turning up his coat collar stiffly, he pulled out a cigarette from his pocket. Fumbling with the lighter in his other hand, it took him a few tries to achieve a flame, and once he'd lit the cigarette, he leaned back against the damp, moss-covered brick wall behind him and waited in the shadows. The single glowing point of stifled flame at the tip of the lit cigarette was the only distinguishable source of light for yards around. The alleyway was too deep and the night too starless for the meek street lamps to be able cast their yellow glow effectively into the far recesses of the city roads.

A few minutes of undisturbed quietude passed. The local brawl had stagnated and the cats of the alley two roads down slunk away into the night. Hardly a few seconds later, static crackled again, and with a *beep* the walkie-talkie buzzed at the man's hip with the sound of a human voice. "All clear. Move in."

"Gotcha." The man muttered into the device, springing to his feet with quick, fluid motions. With one last drag, he flicked the remainder of his cigarette onto the ground and crushed it with the heel of his heavy combat boot. He spat into the darkness behind, adjusted his hat, and, spinning on his heel, disappeared into thin air with a barely-audible *pop*.

Hardly a second later two miles east of the lonesome downtown out in the middle of a field of tall grasses, a man suddenly appeared with another small *pop*.

The fellow with the beige hat and stiff collar brushed his coat and looked slowly around him. A yard or two away, a wide dirt road carried off into the east, cutting through the expanse of dry vegetation. A little pace before it disappeared into the black horizon, a vehicle of sorts was observable lined up along the side of the road; it was comparatively large and rectangular-shaped. The truck was parked along the edge of the dirt path, a lone symbol of civilization (except for the silhouette of a radio tower visible on the mountains far north) in the otherwise dead, dry outskirts of the lonesome town two miles west.

Perhaps there was nothing very suspicious about the vehicle in itself if one chose not to wonder about the nature of the reason of it being there to begin with, nor did it seem like the owners of this vehicle were around the vicinity, for the curtains were drawn and no light could be seen glowing from within. However, the man who had only just appeared on the scene seemed to find a reason to investigate, and towards this suspicious entity, this man with the beige hat and stiff collar began to make his way.

Trampling through the grass as quietly as he possibly could, the man was standing at the rear door of the RV in a matter of a minute, staring thoughtfully at the handle and occasionally peering surreptitiously through the barricaded windows. Nobody could be seen for miles around, and nothing inside the vehicle showed any indication of life. Looking down both ends of the road, he powered off his walkie-talkie and quickly reached into his pocket, pulling out what looked like a long, knobby stick about eleven inches long. He pointed it with certainty at his own head; almost immediately, the tip glowed white, and a near-invisible bubble slowly emanated from it, stretching to encompass the man's head and sealing off at the end once it was large enough to do so.

The man seemed to think nothing of the fact that his head was now inside of a very large bubble that had grown from the end of a tree branch, and was now pointing the very same bizarre stick at the door. With three soft taps, the lock could be heard to click and the door swung outwards in the slightest.

The man stepped in and quickly shut the door behind him.

There was a startled yelp and the sound of glassware rolling off a counter and smashing into pieces on the hard floor. Eyes still adjusting to the darkness, the man in the hat scowled and held up his wooden stick at arm's length, scanning his surroundings rapidly. A glow illuminated the tip of the extended stick and threw a shadowy light across the room. The counter along the back of the truck was cluttered to the brim with oddly-shaped jars and beakers, filled with liquids, precipitate and red powder. The entire place smelled overwhelmingly of cat urine and rotten eggs, which the man in the hat could only faintly catch a whiff of through the bubble around his head.

"Stay put!" He said sharply, and the other presence in the vehicle froze where he was, eyes wide. "Stay put, I-"

The man with the hat felt around his coat hastily, coughing a little as he did so, and presently was able to find what he was searching for: the glowing stick, which he promptly pointed in the general direction of the other fellow.

"Hands up," the man said calmly. The other person in the room stood stock still in what seemed to be disbelief.

"I said hands up!"

Slowly, a pair of skeptical hands began to move upwards.

"Yusef Tran, isn't it?" the man asked. When there was no response, he shrugged. "Didn't expect you to admit to it. Would be pretty stupid of you to, and I hear from the others that you're one of the golden few who're cleverer than the crackheads they sell to."

No reply. The man looked about him, taking in the fallen-over pile of empty Sudafed boxes stuffed under the already minimal furniture, the surprisingly clean carpeted floor and the gas masks only just visible in the corner of the room underneath a stained white sheet. "You keep this place pretty spiff I must say. What're you afraid of, the cops will think you're a slob?"

He was met with silence. He continued almost as if he didn't notice it. "Doesn't matter, all the better for me. You won't believe the kind of shitholes I break the law to acquire. Yours be a good catch. Mind showing me where you keep the goods?"

The man, taking a few stray steps around, encountered a dangling chain of sorts. Following it upwards with his gaze, he tugged on it, and a dusty light bulb flickered on on the ceiling. The man chuckled.

"Muggles, I tell you. Almost everything you own lights up. Never gets old."

"Tran'''s face, now better illuminated, was white and haggard. He followed the man's movements with wary eyes, clutching the counter behind him. The man moved slowly, observing his surroundings carefully. He stopped suddenly, a questioning look on his face a he turned towards Tran. "Haven't you got this place rigged at all?"

Tran gave him a long look, and then rasped. "Who are you?"

The man's brows furrowed. "I'm taking over your lab with nothing but a stick and a bubble around my head, and my name is your most pressing concern? Prioritize, mate."

"So you're not the police?"

"Police? No, I'm not. But put your hands up anyway, makes my job easier. You have any accomplices?"

He turned away, peering out the window.

In an unforeseeable move of rashness, Tran jerked sideways and lunged, grabbing something solid and black on the counter a few feet away from him. Knocking into glassware on his way, it was the clinking noises of glass on wood that caught the attention of the man in the hat. There were five, loud, consecutive crack as Tran aimed his revolver in the general direction of the man with lithe, steady hands and pulled the trigger just as the man turned on his heel; there was a shout of indignant rage and then quietude followed.

Tran slowly lowered his revolver. The place was quiet and still, the grass fluttering outside in the night breeze and the desertion of the area apparent in that the vicinity remained unfazed and unimpressed by the loud cracking of the gunshots. He looked in front of him, at the silhouette of the man he had just hit. The window behind him had not shattered; the bullets had found their mark. The figure shrouded in shadows moved forward. Tran prepared himself for the inevitable thud of an unconscious human body hitting the ground.

It never came.

Instead, the man in the hat stepped into the light, frowning deeply. Tran blanched and stared at the man with shock and outrage.

"What the devil...?!"

"I should say," the man in the hat snapped, "What's the idea, eh? Chucking bullets at me. Scared me half to death."

Tran attempted to back up in horror, but his back was pressed against the counter to a point where the wood was cutting painfully into his skin. As the man took another step forwards, he lifted his gun again and shot in desperate abandon.

"Honestly mate, cut it out," said the man in the hat, waving his hand in front of his face, dispersing what looked like a cluster of feathers that floated to the ground in delicate pirouettes about him. His other hand held up the glowing stick, and he raised it in front of himself. The bullets that Tran had shot were nowhere in sight, nor had the bullets lodged themselves anywhere else in the room; they couldn't have, because Tran was ace at shooting, and his bullets had hit their mark. They seem to have vanished.

Yet the man was dusting off his coat in slight annoyance, untouched and unfazed.

Tran stared at the man and didn't notice when he dropped his gun.

"Right then," the man said grimly. He lifted the stick in his hand and gave it a flick.

Ten minutes later, the man in the hat was standing in the middle of the room, patting the pockets of his coat with distinct satisfaction. Yusef Tran lay in the corner of the vehicle, curled in a fetal position and unmoving. The hidden drawers under the counter were much lighter than they had been ten minutes ago.

There was a little pop near the window.

"You didn't snuff him, did you Doc?"

A third person had joined their party, and he was leaning against the wall of the vehicle, arms crossed and lips twisted in incredulous amusement. He seemed to have appeared out of thin air. Thirty-something with long, shaggy black hair falling into his face, the man looked like he had accidentally stumbled into the RV and was too bored to leave. He jerked his head to shake the hair out of his eyes.

"Doc" adjusted his hat. "No. He's asleep. I've modified his memory."

"That's illegal you know."

The man received a funny look at this. "Well now I'm just offended. Don't I get accredited for breaking, entering and stealing from a druggie?"

"That too."

Doc let out a sigh of happy satisfaction. "Good business. Good stuff. There was loads of it too. It'll last us another two months."

"I resent the inclusion you're implying, I don't know why you keep doing that. *I* am most definitely not a part of the *us*."

"We're a team Ed," Doc said, almost offended.

"You are a freelance wizarding "chemist" who steals from muggle drug-dealers," Ed pointed out, "I'm only called here because...why am I called to your crime scenes?"

"To cover my tracks," Doc grunted looking about him for misplaced items, "you news-folks have seen this kind of thing a lot in your prime. And I like you. I think."

"Right."

Doc prodded an unopened cupboard door below the counter, frowning. Pointing his wand at it, he watched it slowly creak open and, standing to a side, peered within, letting the light from his wand illuminate the dank inside. When he was sure nothing was going to explode, he crouched to the floor and began to grope around.

Ed watched him warily. "What's the walkie talkie for?"

"To communicate with my partner," came his muffled reply. A few seconds later, he pulled himself out of the cupboard and got to his feet, dusting his hands together. He frowned. "Speaking of which, did you see him around when you got here? He hasn't contacted me yet."

Ed shook his head. Doc's frowned deepened.

"Huh."

"Speaking of which, Doc," Ed said, "You hear about the Myers?"

Doc froze in his place with a dark look on his face. "I did."

"Nasty affair."

"Undeniably."

"Dumbledore had a fit."

Doc snorted, but not in amusement. "Well what's he going to do about it?"

"I don't know," Ed said calmly, watching Doc move around the vicinity. "Execute the plan. He had a chat with Meadows and Vance the other day. Things are moving along."

"We're not going anywhere unless we get more people," Doc replied.

Ed shrugged. "Dumbledore has a plan for that too."

"That load of batshit? He can't be serious. This isn't a gobstones club, we ought to be looking for more experienced folks. 'Young and passionate' my ass."

"Well that option is starting to run dry isn't it," Ed said dryly, "the old are experienced; it's precisely why they'd be clever to want nothing to do with it."

"And so we sacrifice our kids?" Dearborn raised an eyebrow.

"They're not kids."

"They are on the battlefield."

There was a sharp knock on the door.

"Ah," Doc said, "That must be him. Get that, will you Ed?"

Grumbling, Ed pushed himself off the wall and padded over to the door of the RV. Doc gave the room a last once-over as he heard the door open some distance away.

And then.

There was a hair-raising crack, and Ed was flung back away from the door and thrown against the opposite wall, hitting the floor with a pained yelp. With an answering shout, Doc turned sharply on his heel, heart thumping wildly as he searched the area frantically for the violent intruder, wand at the ready.

"What the fuck?"

"Get out of here!" Ed shouted from his position on the floor, gesticulating wildly at Doc. "Get out of here before-"

"DEARBORN."

No other voice in the world could have made Caradoc Dearborn jump three feet in the air and squeal the way he did now. It was all he could do to keep himself from abandoning his companion to fate and jumping out the window tail between legs. Instead, with a tremendous amount of effort, he swallowed very noticeably, eye fixed on the darkness shrouding the entrance to the vehicle.

"Em, love?" he croaked, "Is that you?"

There was an answering scowl, the kind that would send mountain hippogriffs scurrying to a corner. "I can't open this door. I'm going to blast it."

Doc exchanged a look of unhindered horror with Ed. "No no, don't do that, I'll be right there."

Stumbling over Ed's foot as the latter attempted to collect his strewn self from off the carpet, he hurried to get the door. The former cursed quietly, and the latter carefully unlocked the door with two taps of his wand, very cautiously opening it just enough for him to be able to peer outside.

He stuck his head out of the gap and was greeted with the sight of a tall woman with a frightening look in her coal-black eyes.

"Ah, Em. Good to see you," Dearborn said, attempting to sound as cheerful as possible.

The woman, "Em", blinked condescendingly. Arms crossed over her narrow figure clothed in a smart dress robe of deep green, she raised a shapely eyebrow at the sandy-haired head wedged between the door and its frame.

"Dearborn." She said with distaste. "Why I find you in the darkest, most suspicious reaches of Europe will never cease to be a source of morbid wonder for me."

"I'm on business-"

"The law begs to differ," Em cut in dryly.

Dearborn winced and scratched his nose. "Ah, well, even you've got to admit there's a little amusing irony in that."

"If you wish to engage in criminal activities might I suggest a little discretion?"

"Em, you managed to dent the wall," they heard Ed grumble from inside of the trailer.

Em looked from Doc's face to the blackness of the space behind him and back. Her lips thinned, voice heavy with solemnity. "I need you two to come with me."

Doc looked like he had been slapped across the face. "You aren't turning us in, are you?!"

"Don't be an idiot," Em snapped at him sharply, "Azkaban doesn't have space to waist on pointless worms like you. I need you because Dumbledore has called."

Doc's head snapped up to look at her thoughtfully. "Dumbledore? Is this regarding-"

"Sh!" Em hushed him, looking about her discretely. She leaned forward, brows furrowed and said in a low voice, "He's managed to find us a place. He wants to carry out the rest of the formalities."

There was a stifled mumble from inside the trailer and Doc turned back for a few seconds before reemerging at the door. "Right. Give us a minute."

Five minutes later, three individuals were standing in the midst of the tall, dry grass a few feet away from the lone trailer on the side of the road. The wind had begun to pick up as the night progressed, and it whistled in through the vegetation with a low, excited moan. The eeriness of the night seeped through the movements of the grass, the dull flickering of the stars and the chill of the night that deposited little drops of frost and dew on the floor of the terrain. The moon was near-full and Caradoc Dearborn was looking up at it with a strange expression, fingering something in his pocket. Edgar Bones lit his cigar calmly and then nodded at the woman by his side. She pulled out her wand in response.

"Ready?"

Dearborn nodded. Emmeline Vance reached into her pocket and pulled out a faded copper coin. She tossed it in the air and aimed her wand; a second later the coin slowed its descent until it landed on invisible grounds in midair, glowing.

"Portkey ready."

Three hands reached forward to hold on to it.

"On the count of three," Emmeline said.

Ed frowned at her. "Portkey? Can't we apparate? Where are we going?"

"Hogwarts," Emmeline said grimly. And then, with a sudden pop, the two men, the woman and the coin disappeared into thin air.

The wind continued to howl.

"That's Emmeline Vance."

Sirius Black opened his eyes.

Slowly the rest of his senses came flooding back one by one; the world flickered into sight, the sound of the laughter of students and the pounding of feet up and down the cold stone corridor floor sharpened, the feeble breeze from the high-set windows blew strands of his hair into his face. With an effort to counter the inertia of uncaring boredom, he rolled his head off its resting place on the wall and looked at the shorter boy next to him.

"Where?"

Peter jerked his head discretely. Down the corridor a few paces away, a witch and two wizard were walking briskly in their direction, boots tapping loudly and purposefully. The witch that lead the trio had on a deep green set of robes that set off her raven hair. She was young and stern-looking, almost sour, but quite pretty otherwise. It would have been hard to pick her out of the crowd as one, but the ministry logo above her left breast, imprinted in dark blue, gave her away. The two men behind her did not look like they were ministry officials; indeed, the one with the rugged face and blond hair was wearing a suspicious looking overcoat as he slunk after her and the other tall, thin one had on a dusty shirt and a cigar which he was flagrantly puffing at from the side of his mouth.

They walked passed Sirius and Peter, whispering sharply to each other.

"...Meadows, she would do it, it was decided upon..."

"...no, Dumbledore's secret keeper, the place just belongs to her..."

If they noticed the two boys outside the Headmaster's office, they did not show any signs of acknowledgement as they continued to talk amongst themselves in quick voices. Indeed hardly a minute had passed before the gargoyle manning the entrance of Dumbledore's office jumped aside and Professor McGonagall appeared at the foot of the steps behind him.

"Ah," she said crisply. "Yes, he's waiting for you upstairs."

The three newcomers nodded their greetings at Professor McGonagall and entered through the door she held open for them. She glanced at Peter and Sirius with a sour look on her face.

"Stay where you are, he will see you in a minute," she said sharply. With that, she shut the door behind her with a loud thud.

Sirius turned to Peter and Peter turned to Sirius, eyebrows raised.

"What's an officer of the Department of Magical Law and Enforcement doing here?"

"Think something's happened again?"

"What if it has to do with the Meyers' case?"

"You don't think what you did was illegal do you?" Peter said, horror dawning slowly upon him.

Sirius gave him a withering look. "Don't be ridiculous."

"You did hurt the man," Peter pointed out in discontent, "You hexed him pretty bad."

"I made weeds grow out of his ear," Sirius said sourly, "it's elementary. He'll live. And besides, he deserves a lot worse."

"Yes," Peter said almost scathingly, which was rather bold for Peter, "because that's going to convince Dumbledore."

"You saying I shouldn't have done it then?"

Peter was silent.

Sirius raised an eyebrow, fixing a penetrating gaze on his face. Peter flushed slightly, opening and closing his mouth.

"You think I shouldn't have, don't you?"

"No." Peter said adamantly, almost as if he was convincing himself. Sirius raised his eyes to the ceiling in suppressed exasperation.

"Thought not."

But Peter still looked doubtful, and he bowed his head, frowning to himself. He was a pacifist; rash actions and bold confrontations did not sit well with him, but Sirius was all about bold confrontations and rash actions. His was a caustic nature of sorts, simmering in wait for something to react to, jump out at. A spasm of anger shot through Sirius' body as he recalled the rapid succession of events that occurred that afternoon which led him to where he was outside Dumbledore's office, in deeper shit than he cared to acknowledge. It didn't matter how much trouble he got into for hexing an adult. He would do it again.

And he couldn't understand why Peter wouldn't.

But Peter wasn't REALLY involved anyway. He hadn't done anything, and Dumbledore could easily check that for himself; the imprint of the spell was on Sirius' wand, not Peter's. Peter was only in the wrong place at the wrong time. This...this was all Sirius. When the green vines began to creep out of the motherfucker's earholes and wrap around his face and his eyes bulged in horror and sheer incredulity, when he screamed and ran out of the room cussing profusely and yelling reprucussions, Sirius' had felt the begins of sadistic satisfaction and release for the pure rage boiling in his blood, and he had grinned.

He gripped his wand in his pocket, pursing his lips.

Sirius heard Peter squeak before he heard the heavy stone door of Dumbledore's office swing open with a shuddering groan, creaking as came to a stop. Professor McGonagall stood at the entrance enshrouded in deep amber light that made her spectacles gleam menacingly, arms crossed over her chest and lips thinned to terrifying proportions.

"Mr. Black," she said hollowly. "Mr. Pettigrew. The Headmaster is ready for you."


	2. Chapter 1

**...Reviews always appreciated, etc.**

**Quill to Parchment**

* * *

"Sit down, Sirius."

By virtue of it being a command, albeit a polite one, Sirius remained standing. It was his natural response to orders - defiance. Wether it was because his dear old Mum had tried to ingrain it into his head so aggressively that he felt the undeniable urge to whack her where it hurt in person and in spirit, or whether the new-found freedom he experienced from having abandoned his home and namesake unnaturally turned him against the idea of doing as told, he didn't know. But childish spite issued from his very glare as continued to stand, and yet the Headmaster continued to smile in that all-knowing, infuriating way of his.

"You too, Mr. Pettigrew, take a seat."

Peter sat down immediately. Perhaps in this case Sirius's look of disgust was unfounded, but Peter's ready obedience always ignited one of Sirius's shorter fuses. He also noticed that Dumbledore addressed Sirius on first-name basis and Peter not so; it was a testimony, ironically enough, of how much more often Sirius ended up in this very room and for how much more dire the reasons, than Peter.

The countless days he'd spent all of last year scratching out student records on fresh parchment, sorting Dumbledore's mail, alphabetizing Dumbledore's millions of dusty tombs, for hours on end in deathly silence and solitude, were sketched permanently in his memory. He had been too scared, too ashamed then, to talk to the Headmaster even while Dumbledore sat at his desk and struck conversation, which he eventually stopped doing when all his attempts to draw out multisyllabic responses culminated in vain, and when Dumbledore was not in, the room was just a dank, dark, empty room bereft of the magnanimous aura Dumbledore filled any room with with simply his presence.

Sirius was intimate with this room, to say in the least.

The thought of what had enforced that still made his insides turn.

Present-day Dumbledore fixed Sirius with a piercing blue eye.

"Sirius."

Sirius held the gaze.

"Sit down, boy, we don't have all weekend!"

It wasn't the fact that Sirius had entirely missed the extra presence in the room so much as how distinctly grating and bark-like the voice that issued from it was. He jumped a little and it took a moment before he found the man who it belonged to, expecting to find something of a cross between Professor McGonagall and Hagrid.

He was close. The man was shorter than him, so his proportions were not Hagrid-esque, but his beard was scraggly enough, and the hair atop his head meticulously matted. His countenance was that of Professor McGonagall when facing a particularly stupid student - he looked positively hostile. He was the type of bloke that would make little children drop their ice creams and run; his eyes were not complementary. One was a normal shade of brown, and the other was electric blue, wooden, bulging to alarming proportions and spinning in its place like it couldn't quite decide where to look. It reminded Sirius of the bloke in the Telltale Heart story from That Man Poe's book that Remus treasured so dearly.

And yet, in any other place and time, Sirius would've all but asked for an autograph. Indeed, he resolved to adopt a more polite tone even now, while his ego rankled and his previous anger at the victim for whom he was standing here was still fresh.

Oh yes, Sirius knew who the gargoyle-esque man was.

"Now now, Alastor," Dumbledore said lightly, as if berating a large, ugly puppy, "Sirius is quite familiar with this office. Should he desire a seat, there is one provided for him, and I will not object if he decides not to claim it at my request."

Alastor Moody eyed Sirius sourly. "A troublemaker, eh? What're you in for this time?"

Dumbledore gazed keenly at Sirius. "I have an account from Professor McGonagall. It does not seem very promising."

Sirius looked away, fuming.

"Professor Dumbledore," Peter broke in, unable to hold his silence any longer under the combined pressure of the daunting implications of both the Headmaster's and Moody's words. He squeaked, "Professor, please, I-that is to say-we didn't mean to hurt Mr. Eno or anything like that-"

"Fernsby," Sirius barked, "His name was Enock Fernsby. Stop talking about him like you two were rummy-"

"He told us to call him Eno, Remus called him that too," Peter said resentfully, cowering slightly under Sirius's murderous glare.

"I doubt that's even his real name, that slimy son of a-"

"Mr. Black!"

Professor McGonagall's thunderous voice echoed across the office as she slammed the Headmaster's office door shut. Fixing Sirius was a dirty look, she nodded at both Moody and Dumbledore, and stood where she was, arms crossed and foot tapping.

Sirius pursed his lips, not having noticed her entry. Peter stared into his lap, sulking.

"Minerva," Dumbledore said politely, "have the guests left?"

The guests. Emmeline Vance from the Ministry, and her two accomplices. Sirius and Peter had crossed them on the stairs, and both parties surreptitiously sized the other up; the former with obnoxious curiosity and the latter with bored half-interest. Sirius sorely regretted not listening in on that conversation - she looked rather grim, and her companions too weedy for it not to have been worth eavesdropping on.

Emmeline Vance had been in the papers recently, her name associated with top-level Ministry officials of the Department of Magical Law and Enforcement, first and foremost being her husband, Basil Vance, the head of the department. It being an uneven match was plenty enough for the newspapers to latch upon, what with there being a ten-year age difference, but her rapid ascent up the professional ladder had Rita Skeeter questioning the legitimacy of the appointment. But case after case, Vance had proven herself not only worth of her position, but also capable of far more. Now at the near-pinnacle of her rise, she had enough power and credentials to take the place of her husband in the mere seven years it was projected before he retired from his post. She was the Ministry's shiny new pearl, their favorite interviewee with her handsome Persian-esque looks and strong answers, and she was, as of recent, involved in the Meyers' case.

Their death had been the talk of the week, and that was saying something, if one took a step back and was rude enough to tally the deaths that had wormed their way into the papers of late. It had been a particularly gruesome occurrence. The family of four had disappeared; all but the mother. She had been nailed to the front door, eyes gouged out, with a dark mark tattooed across her forehead.

She was a Muggle.

The news, admittedly, had little time to comment on the the nature of Emmeline Vance's personal relationships.

"I showed them out," McGonagall said, eyes still fixed on Sirius and Peter. "Mr. Black, what you've done-"

"Minerva," Dumbledore interrupted firmly, "I am quite certain Sirius can give me an equally fair account of what occurred between him and - ah - Mr. Enock Fernsby, was it?"

"What's the offense?" Mood growled at the ceiling, pivoting on his leg and clattering to the back of the office in restless haste. He hadn't the patience to indulge in the self-interest and freedom of speech young boys were entitled to. His wooden leg, which peeked out from under his cloak, clunked awkwardly against the marble floor. Peter stared at it, unabashed, and slightly nerve-wrecked at being this openly spurred by both McGonagall and Moody.

"Mr. Black hexed a certain Mr. Enock Fernsby with a potentially dangerous spell." Dumbledore said. His face, though impassive, had a sharpness to it as his gaze bore into Sirius. "I hadn't, prior to the incident, gleaned any sort of animosity between Sirius and Mr. Fernsby. But he is a Ministry official, and if the Institution to which he belonged attempts to get in touch with me, I need to know to what party I owe an apology."

Moody looked at Sirius sharply. "Attacking a ministry official is a heavy offense."

"I know, Sir," Sirius replied flatly.

"Then I hope you have a good reason for it, Mr. Black," McGonagall threatened, lips pursed.

Peter opened and closed his mouth twice, glancing nervously at Sirius, and then fell back into a troubled reverie, as if unsure whether voicing his account of the event would be welcomed by his friend. Sirius didn't seem to be in a hurry to explain himself.

It was not like Sirius to take action without purpose, because while he was a rather action-oriented sinner, he was inanely a purpose-oriented person. He and James blew up toilets, pelted water bombs on the Quidditch stands from fifty feet up, switched the portrait of Crusty the Commenative from the second floor with that of The Lumpy Turtle in the girls' bathroom, and harassed Snape, but none of which were without any purpose. His explanations perhaps were not to the professors' likings, but that could be attributed to a difference of opinion.

He never, however, did anything of such proportion and consequence for no reason whatsoever. Especially not something like cursing a Ministry officer to make weeds grow out of his ears and chase him out of the castle. Not just any Ministry officer either - Mr. Enock Fersby, a representative from a reputed research firm, looking to hire seventh year students fresh from Hogwarts as a part of the Ministry's internship program held at Hogwarts during every year's Career Week.

On a side-note, Sirius speculated about whether Career Week was the reason Alastor Mad-Eye Moody was visiting the Castle.

Back in present-day physical reality, Dumbledore calmly adjusted his half-moon spectacles. "We await your answer, Mr. Black."

It was on that note that distraction came stampeding up the spiral steps and into Dumbledore's office. There was a thundering of footsteps running up the stairway outside, and just as Professor McGonagall hurried to the door in alarm, a voice shouted from the other side, loud, breathless and slightly desperate.

"Professor, wait!"

The door burst open with dramatic amplitude. Every head in the room swiveled towards the intruder, who stood panting, hair sticking out in all directions, holding onto the edge of the stone door for support as he attempted to catch his breath.

"Professor, he wasn't the real Mr. Fernsby!"

The nature of this declaration, though certainly executed in style and not lacking in heavy accusation, was not so earth-shattering as was the time, place, manner and audience that it was done in and for. The conviction in the boy's eyes was no mean lackluster. His aura of unfazed confidence seemed enough to render McGonagall and Moody figuratively scratching their heads to make heads or tails of what the boy had just yelled out to the office. Only Dumbledore seemed relatively unperturbed, and he peered very intently at his student, his glassy eyes dusted only slightly with amusement.

Having finally collected his wits, the boy walked swiftly and purposefully towards Dumbledore's desk, oblivious to the five incredulous pairs of eyes all collectively staring at him as if he had dropped down from the ceiling. His jet-black hair, sticking out at the oddest of angles, his large circular glasses, and his utter lack of self-preservation seemed to rub Moody in a very unnatural way, quite like dipping one's hand in wetted cornstarch; he was unable to make up his mind about whether the specimen in question was morbidly fascinating or a downright annoyance.

Moody settled for the latter, always eager to give one the benefit of doubt.

"Who the bloody fuck are you?" Moody roared.

Dumbledore gazed on serenely.

"Mr. Potter we are in the middle of something-" McGonagall began heatedly.

"Professor Dumbledore," James interrupted urgently, "Professor, hear me out."

Sirius, whose incredulous eyes hadn't left the boy's face till he stood beside him now, simply stared at him like he was completely off his rocker. Peter was glowing with a synergy of admiration and intense bewilderment.

"I have proof." James's hand, whacking against the wooden expanse of Dumbledore's desk, caused not a few people to jump slightly. Pinned to the table by his palm and long fingers were two pieces of paper; one was written on in neat, even handwriting that suggested the use of a self-writing quill. The paper was crisp and relatively new, like it hadn't been handled much, and the edges were furnished with a golden braided design, with tiny seals spaced every few inches. It was quite certainly a Ministry-written document. The second was common parchment, old and torn at the edges, scrawled on in a more inconsistent, human way.

Dumbledore, McGonagall and Moody leaned over as James slowly withdrew his hand. Now unobscured by it, the papers were more clearly identifiable as letters. The former began with a brief "Mr. Edeson," and ended with "Sincerely, Matsumo Montgomery, Head, Department of Study of Magical Creatures, Justice Johansson Institute of Higher Research, funded by the Ministry Of Magic." This in turn was attached to a second letter, which was addressed directly to James and signed off as Cousin Red. The middle content was short, only a paragraph or two, but the triumphant sparkle in James's eyes told Sirius that this was their ticket of justification.

"Mate, what...?" Sirius began.

"Shut up, Padfoot," James muttered from the side of his mouth. He winked at Peter, whose befuddled expression was further exacerbated, and cleared his throat.

McGonagall looked up at him. Dumbledore and Moody continued to inspect the papers. "What is this, Potter?"

"A letter," James said simply. "from my cousin Creadel Edeson. Mum's second nephew. He works at the JJ Institute. I wrote to him last week, and he agreed to find out about Enock Fernsby and the kind of work he does in the study of werewolves."

James pointed at the Ministry letter. "He found out from colleagues that Fernsby wasn't in town. Took a vacation. So he wrote him a letter to his office, a mock proposal asking for some information Fernsby had regarding their recruitment numbers and whether they could meet, and Montgomery wrote him THAT letter back, confirming that Fernsby was somewhere in south India. Red sent it to me."

"A fake?" Moody asked sharply, looking up from the Ministry letter which he now held in his hands.

"Incredible," McGonagall said faintly, "But I did a background check myself. The Enock Fernsby who was part of the recruitment program was a Ministry-approved researcher at JJ Institute."

"Were you aware of this, Mr. Black?" Dumbledore asked Sirius. Sirius shook his head.

James shook his head as well. "Sirius didn't know, I just got this letter."

"As concerning as this may be Mr. Potter," McGonagall said, looking troubled, "What has this to do with Mr. Black? I still don't see what the need was to attack the man, nor do I see a personal offense in his deceit!"

"I..."

Here he stopped short, and the silence that followed saw a James Potter at a loss for words. Seeking an answer, every pair of eyes turned to look at Sirius, five gazes staring at him with varying degrees of bewilderment, accusation and curiosity.

"It seems to me," Professor Dumbledore said quietly, "that there is a far deeper reason for your having attacked Mr. Fernsby today morning than on a whim, am I correct Mr. Black?"

James glanced sideways at Sirius. Sirius remained silent, brooding. It was quite like James to barge in at the last minute to save Sirius from consequences when it came to heavier matters, especially of recent where James was less and less standing beside Sirius, partner in crime, in front of the Headmaster's office and more and more backing him up, the relatively responsible one of the two. Maybe it was what had happened last year that had turned James's mind. However livid he had been about the entire fiasco, he'd still turned up to rescue Sirius from, at that point, dire, irreversible consequences that would've had Sirius packing off to Azkaban for nothing short of murder. And even in Sirius's most shameful hour of black self-hatred, standing in this very spot in front of a furious Dumbledore, James had managed to pull through.

James's faith in Sirius was unshakeable.

"Why did you jinx Fernsby, boy?" Moody growled, but his blue eye was fixed on Sirius in keen interest, as if having been provided a new perspective on the previously juvenile troublemaker.

"Sirius found something," Peter interrupted the span of silence in a quiet voice. "He found a postcard of sorts, if I remember, that was Mr. Fernsby's. But Mr. Fernsby took it back with him I think, when he fled. That's what got Sirius angry. I don't know exactly what was in it. They had an argument in the Charms classroom, and Sirius accused Mr. Fernsby of cheating Remus. And then he got angry."

Peter turned to look at Sirius, troubled. "You said something about taking advantage of Remus's condition. You said the paper was-"

"It was an agreement," Sirius completed tonelessly. A muscle in his jaw twitched, and his eyes burned with slow, caustic anger as he spoke. "When Mr. Fernsby agreed to hire Remus for a research position at the JJ Institute in the field of werewolf study he was working on, he drafted an agreement for Remus to sign. Basic stuff, what kind of jobs he would get, how long, at what pay. I assumed it was Ministry-approved, but if he was sham-"

"Which he was," James interjected, pointing helpfully at the written testament of his statement on Dumbledore's table.

"We don't know that, he could've worked for the Ministry," Peter piped in. "Maybe they're in on it."

"Quiet, boy, before you go about badmouthing the Ministry in front of witnesses, times are not very liberal to treason these days," Moody barked at Peter. Peter turned a bright shade of red and sunk into his chair meekly, eyes darting about. James looked up sharply at Moody, his gaze not very friendly.

"Perhaps there were external hands in play, I don't know," Sirius snapped, "I had my suspicions, so I read the paper. I..."

Sirius suddenly trailed off, opening and closing his mouth with uncertainty.

Dumbledore, whose gaze hadn't shifted from Sirius's face the entire time, now spoke. He sounded keen, having finally got to the crux of the matter. "You read something in it, yes Mr. Black?"

Sirius clenched his fist. "Yes."

Dumbledore leaned forward in his chair, speaking slowly and firmly. "And what did you find?"

There was a pregnant pause as Sirius looked away from Dumbledore and out the window, an odd expression on his face. Dumbledore waited. As general patience began to wear thin, Sirius spoke, his voice funny.

"There was a clause in the agreement. It was on the last page, near the bottom, and it sounded kind of funny. 'the under the law, the identity of the procured experimental subjects is not to be released under any circumstances, nor will the Institution be liable to provide medical coverage for sustained injuries'... or something like that. It ... sounded weird. Fernsby had never mentioned a test subjects. The research was supposed to be in its preliminary stages, they weren't ready for testing on anything. And besides, medical coverage made it sound like they were testing on ... creatures that were liable to get medical coverage."

Sirius took a deep breath before he continued, grey eyes clouded over with a trouble expression as if unsure whether divulging the information he had was a good idea. "I read into it, read the entire paper ... I approached Fernsby shortly after, today morning, in fact, to ask him about it. He seemed to be in a hurry to leave. I was supposed to give him Remsus' signed agreement on his behalf, and when I told him I didn't have it, he seemed very unsettled. Said he couldn't stay too long, had some jobs to do elsewhere."

Sirius looked straight at Dumbledore. "That's when I found the postcard Peter was talking about. He dropped it right when he was leaving, and I didn't get to see who it was from, but it talked about recruitment. About securing new 'suitable volunteers' for the 'trials'. And there was the name ... Gordon."

"Edison Gordon," Moody said quietly, realization dawning as his expression became grimmer, if that was possible. Edison Gordon had made an appearance in the paper regularly for a week nearly two months ago. He was a registered werewolf and a social activist well-known in the Soho community. His fall to grace after the exposing of a government scandal in which there was convincing proof of his involvement had left him destitute and in dire poverty, unable to find work with his lycanthropic condition. Forgotten by the media and the wizarding world, it was about two months ago that he was reintroduced by his sudden disappearance off the streets; there were theories floating around that he had joined He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, while others speculated that he fled the country, and yet others said that he had been abducted in connection with the mysterious disappearances of werewolves and goblins that had been prevalent lately in the poverty-stricken parts of the town. The latter was scorned alongside the string of disappearances they were linked to, for while witches and wizards were dying every day, nobody had the time to worry about the already-forgotten sects of society.

"But you realize what you're implying, don't you Mr. Black?" McGonagall asked sharply. "That this man, Fernsby, has, in his research been using-"

"werewolves to be tested on, yes," Sirius said, voice shaking in anger. "I'm pretty sure of it. He was going to have Remus tested. He was going to have him experimented on. Live werewolf test subjects. THAT was the agreement. I had to comb through the entire paper, but it was there. Remus didn't read it, because Fernsby had 'talked it over' with him. And...it was his first opportunity at a job outside school."

Sirius looked straight into Dumbledore's steely gaze, ignoring McGonagall, whose face had gone white, and Moody, who's blue eye remained fixed on Sirius intently. "But it was a sham. That's why I jinxed Mr. Fernsby."

Dumbledore regarded Sirius solemnly. He alternated his piercing gaze between the three boys in front of him, eventually settling on both Sirius and James. He deliberated for only a moment, before he spoke in even, hard tones.

"Mr. Potter," he said quietly, "You are the Head Boy of Hogwarts School. I have considerable faith in your judgement, and it would be foolish of me to appoint my student leaders if I did not. Mr. Black has made his side of the story heard, and it is most definitely a grave matter. I do not take my students being treated thus lightly; it angers me. Remus's case is a delicate one, and his welfare and professional dignity are in my hands. It is a very grave matter indeed, if such an occurrence has taken place in this castle, and there will be severe repercussions for the party that is in the untruth. Thus informed, Mr. Potter, I would like your final stance on the matter; is what I am hearing the truth?"

James's lips were pursed, a black cloud of suppressed anger for his werewolf friend hanging above his brow. "Yes," he said firmly. "The Mr. Fernsby we met was a fake. What's more, I've seen the ten-page agreement Sirius and Peter are talking about. I didn't read it, but I know if Sirius says that's what it said, I believe him."

Dumbledore adjusted his glasses. "Very well. I will contact the Ministry about the identity of Mr. Fernsby as well as make inquiries about the nature of his stated research ventures. Has Remus been told?"

Sirius and James nodded slowly. Peter winced.

"I would like to see him in my office, then. Please ask him to come as soon as he is available," Dumbledore said. He turned to look steadily at Professor McGonagall. "Minerva. Is there any disciplinary action you wish to enforce upon Mr. Black?"

McGonagall was shaking her head, face still pale, and she said heavily, "Ten points for disorderly conduct, I suppose. I'm letting you off Mr. Black, because of circumstantial justifications. However, the headmaster and I would much prefer if such issues were brought to us, rather than taking on the liberty to deal with them as you seem fit."

Sirius and James nodded, as did Peter, albeit more to himself than anybody in the room.

"Very well," McGonagall said thinly, "You may return to your common room. See to it that you send Mr. Lupin over as soon as possible."

Again, they nodded, hands clasped behind their backs. With a waving motion of her hand, Professor McGonagall encouraged them to take their leave. James was the first to react, nodding at the two professors and Moody, and turning on heel to leave. Closely following him was a brooding Sirius, grey eyes clouded over with discontent, turmoil and residual anger. Peter was left awkwardly sitting, and immediately jumped to his feet, cheeks reddening. Excusing himself meekly, he followed close behind his friends, looking relieved at being let off with much less dire consequences than he had thought they would be subjected to walking in. Shuffling one by one to the door, their footsteps echoed as they crossed the marble expanse.

At the door, Sirius hesitated. He looked back at Dumbledore, eyes troubled.

"Sir," he said slowly, "is there any way Remus ... I mean, it was an internship, will Remus be able to find another ...?"

"I will do everything in my position to help Remus find a place both suitable to his intellectual capabilities and his needs," Dumbledore, his voice taking on a timber so gentle and emphatic that Moody turned sharply to look at him.

Not convinced, but momentarily placated, Sirius nodded at Dumbledore. With a last respectful bow of his head, he disappeared behind the door, shutting it gently after.

Moody had remained unnaturally silent throughout the latter half of the proceedings. Something in the conversation had silenced him. Now, with the students having emptied the office, he turned gruffly to Dumbledore, the evening light shrouding his matted hair rather scarily. "Which student?"

Dumbledore did not answer immediately. He beckoned at the ceiling, and a tawny owl unfurled its wings on its perch and took flight. A moment later, it landed in front of the headmaster on his desk, sticking its leg out to receive its parcel. Sealing the short letter he had drafted, he handed it over to the owl, which hopped off the edge of the table and soared into the air, right out the window.

"Remus Lupin," Dumbledore replied eventually.

"Does the Ministry know?"

"No." Dumbledore said simply. The two men looked at each other, expressions unreadable.

"That's against the law, Dumbledore," Moody said quietly.

"Dumbledore," McGonagall interrupted in a low, urgent voice, "This issue with Frensby and the research institute - this is an outrageous. If the man truly was an impostor recruiting handicapped individuals, especially students, for underhand, unauthorized experiments, something ought to be done!"

"My dear professor," Dumbledore said gently, "whether to press charges or not is not my decision to make. Mr. Lupin shall be told exactly what has come to our attention, and Mr. Lupin shall make an informed decision."

"Albus, the boy is seventeen," McGonagall said in alarm, "surely you can't expect him to have to come to the decision of demanding justice on his own?"

"I do not necessarily think that may be the correct course to pursue, in this case," Dumbledore said carefully. His face suddenly turned graver, almost sadder, as he added "and Remus knows far more than we give him the credit for. The boy has seen far more in his life than we wish to acknowledge. He has been wronged, and he will decide how he wishes to handle it."

* * *

"Motherfucker," Sirius growled.

James threw the papers onto the coffee table in front of him, resting his elbows on it and burying his face in his hands. "It couldn't have been a complete sham."

Sirius raised an eyebrow from his position sprawled on the couch facing James's sofa. "As opposed to a half-sham?"

"McGonagall said she did a background check. They wouldn't let anybody unable to pass a Ministry check into the program," James said through muffled hands.

"Maybe he had connections in the Ministry," Peter offered from his spot cross-legged on the ground, Potions homework in front of him, "I'm sure it's easier to access better deceptive magic if you work in the Ministry."

"Dumbledore couldn't be hoodwinked that easily."

Sirius stared at James in brooding thoughtfulness. "Does it matter? Maybe he already worked there. Who cares?"

James withdrew from the cocoon of his hands. He looked tired, face gaunt and sleep-deprived. A combination of N.E.W.T.-level load stress and the additional duties as Head Boy had taken a toll on his health, not to mention this new addition to their ever-surmounting concerns. His folks back home weren't doing so well either.

"Doesn't matter," James parroted. He leaned his back against the sofa. "Dumbledore's talking to Remus. He'll do something about it."

Sirius laughed dryly. "Do you honestly think Remus is going to press charges? The git would do anything to stay out of the limelight. Take my word for it, he'll settle for wiping the slate clean and nursing his destroyed dreams back to their original bleak existence."

James frowned at the table. "He's got to do something about it. They can't keep going about doing that shit, whoever they are. If they're working under the Ministry, we ought to shut down their business."

"Because there are just that many werewolves going to schools of magic in clandestine that can be shammed."

"We should do it for Remus," Peter said flatly.

"No," Sirius said, shaking his head, "No point. Revealing the scam to the media isn't going to do anything but draw unnecessary attention to Remus's already strained predicament. It's not going to shut down anything, because werewolf rights aren't honestly important enough for the research institute to loose funding for it. Fucking Umbridge and her fucking legislation. By the time we get the story out, Fernsby is going to be fired already - mark my words. They'll have their alibi ready, especially if our fake Mr. Fernsby was a Ministry insider. Remus wouldn't want the attention."

"If we could cut off their funding..." James murmured, throwing his head back.

"We can't do shit about it."

"Besides jinx the sham Mr. Fernsby, you mean," was the dry response.

Sirius gave James a sour look. "The media is certainly not going to help."

James straightened his head and began picking at loose threads on the knee of his jeans, pondering.

"Do you really think Remus won't press charges?" Peter asked aloud.

James didn't reply. Sirius nodded slowly, staring into the kindling fire as it crackled in the hearth. Peter sighed and returned to his homework, and a morose kind of semi-silence descended on the Gryffindor common room, with only the backdrop of muffled chattering from the other three corners filling it in.

Presently, Sirius spoke again.

"Hey Prongs. Chudley Cannons lost the match."

James gave an audible groan. "Ah fuck, and I was betting on them winning after their beater came back from remission. Bloody hell, I owe Turpin five galleons."

"Turpin's a worm," Sirius snorted, "Anybody who bets two knuts on the Cannons winning-"

"-I bet five, do I qualify?"

There were distinct reactions to this interruption. Sirius looked up sharply like a dog that had caught a scent. James did not move a muscle out of place, now having escalated to attempting to shave his jeans with his wand. Only Peter gave an audible response.

"Oh, it's you," Peter said in clear relief to the new voice in the conversation, pushing his Potions homework a few inches away from himself like its proximity was the source of his deep-rooted headache, "this stuff is beyond me, mate, can you help?"

"You know I'm abysmal at Potions, Pete," Remus conversationally, approaching the boys with hands in pocket and then leaning a hip against the arm of the sofa, hovering near James's head, "you ought to ask Sirius for help. Or Lily."

Peter glanced quickly at Sirius. "Sirius won't-"

"About time you came back, Moony," Sirius interrupted, eyeing his friend's face intently. It was not unfounded, his concern. Remus began Hogwarts as every a fresh-faced eleven year-old did, with neatly trimmed hair and bright amber eyes that, albeit their childlike hopefulness for promising prospects, were gaunt enough for it to be plaintative that these were eyes that had seen things no child should be subjected to see. And as the years dwindled by, the childlike optimism soon wore thin, shed like a forgotten coat in the bitter cold and the gaunt amber eyes were frozen in their premature maturity and sad acceptance. Sirius, James, Peter - they had seen the transition, the transformation with each transformation, the toll that each waxing and waning moon took on their friend. While his peers grew leaner by virtue of being adolescent boys, he grew thinner from the dreaded anticipation of leaving the castle. The castle had taken him in when he didn't believe anyone would. Stepping out of a home and into the far nastier world that he remembered as a child with newly developed perception and emotions that were all the more damaging for the power of understanding they now equipped him with, was a difficult prospect for Remus to come to terms with.

Amber eyes, veiling their unhappiness under a blanket of pleasant amiability, gazed back at Sirius. "You really ought to help him with Potions."

Sirius made a sour expression. "Let James do it."

"James had Head duties."

"That's right, James has head duties," James parroted in a singsong way.

Peter looked slightly put out.

Remus shook his head at Sirius disapprovingly, and then sighed. "You're incorrigible. Fine Pete, I'll help you, yeah? If your potion blows up in your face though, don't look at me."

"Yeah, that'd probably be Sirius chucking exploding snap cards in your cauldron," James added.

"That's an old one mate, you're losing touch," Sirius said, stretching and yawning loudly. His hand descended on his head and he ruffled his hair thoughtfully. A gaggle of girls sitting by the window glanced enviously at him sprawled regally on the sofa, shaggy hair falling gracefully across his handsome features. He took no notice of anybody though, still gazing thoughtfully into vacant space until James chucked a paper ball at him to catch his attention, glancing surreptitiously at Remus, who was not bent over Peter's homework, brown hair spilling onto the parchment.

Sirius raised an eyebrow, having taken the hint. "Oi Remus. What did Dumbledore say to you."

Remus stiffened for a split second before he looked up from the parchment. "About what?"

"About the Fernsby scam," James said in shameless honesty.

Peter shifted uncomfortably as Remus forced a strained smile. "Nothing, really. He asked me if I wanted to press charges and I said no."

Jams and Sirius exchanged a look. "No?"

"You can't say you don't want that place shut down," James said, eyebrows raised mildly.

"What place?" Remus asked, his own eyebrows matching James's, "the research institute? I'd rather not, a good number of fields of study would suffer a setback-"

"You probably aren't their first recruit," Sirius interrupted brazenly, folding his arms behind his head, "I'd be damned if this was a one-time thing. I'd give my left arm if they didn't have an entire underground setup where they've been experimenting on werewolves for years. I'll also add in three fingers if the real Fernsby wasn't a part of it."

"I'd wager public attention and a good lawyer would actually shut that branch down," James said easily, throwing his own arms back so that his elbows rested along the sofa seat, "my parents are lawyers, so that can't be your excuse."

"Exactly," Sirius said, taking over, "honestly Moony, you're all set for a media riot. Fuck Umbridge and sue the bastards."

Remus's eyes danced with contemptuous hardness. "Clever, aren't you lot? Be that as it may, if I'm the first to bear full knowledge of whatever's going on and walk out unscathed, I'm not going to bring down entire Ministry-run organizations without artillery. You're asking me to be the sacrificial lamb here."

"You have Dumbledore as your big guns," James pointed out.

Remus rose to his feet, expression bitter. "And what do you suppose, I ought to put the headmaster of Hogwarts at risk for his job because I want to play hero? You don't present the half-baked to the media; they want the entire deal, and they'll find out. If anybody higher up than the school Board finds out that a registered werewolf has been attending Hogwarts for the last six years, Dumbledore's going to be sacked. Ever give that a thought?"

"We have. We've also come to the conclusion that Dumbledore's a big boy and can take care of himself," Sirius said coolly, "you however, are skirting away from attention because you're scared you won't win."

"Yes, because the smart thing to do is walk headlong into trouble like you so bravely do, isn't it?" Remus snapped in accusation, "I ought to just walk up to the Minster of Magic and charm his ears to grow weeds, right? That's the way to handle it. You've blown this entirely out of proportions already Sirius, and now that your penchant for the limelight has been satisfied, I'd appreciate if you keep your nose out of it."

Sirius glared back up at Remus, looking so frail in his tussled brown hair and white oxford hanging off a too-thin frame and yet so charged up with vicious angst. He seemed to set Remus off more often than usual as of late, quite like a bickering couple too old for sex to help them overlook each other's frustrating habits.

James, sitting smack in the middle of the two glowering parties and the beginnings of a battleground, looked perfectly at ease and quite unperturbed. "Remus, my honest advice is: get your shit together. And Sirius, shut up, yeah?"

"Remus," Peter implored, "we just want to help."

Remus looked down at his feet, hands clenched and he laughed hollowly. "You don't know, none of you. You don't understand."

He didn't wait around for their response to this. He balled his fists instead and stormed off in the direction of the boys' dormitory. A few seconds later, they heard the wooden door slam shut in finality. James and Sirius exchanged a look.

"I still don't get it," Peter said, looking morosely at his Potions homework.

"That went well," James said, adjusting his glasses.

"I don't see why you were contradicting him when you seemed to be of the same opinion as he was right before he came in," Peter said sagely.

"He needs a little ruffling," Sirius said, "this ought to stir him up good. The git won't stand up for himself, and you know the best way to ruffle Remus Lupin is to profess an opposing opinion and call him an idiot."

"Coward was below the belt though," James said tiredly, slowly getting to his feet. He stood in place for a moment, looking contemplatively into the fire before he finished his thought. "And incidentally, Padfoot, calm the fuck down. He hasn't quite forgiven you yet-"

"I know," Sirius interrupted caustically. It did not sit with him well that he hadn't the same privileges as James where Remus was concerned. The wounds ran very deep. James did not push it; it was a touchy subject.

Instead, he shrugged nonchalantly and said, "Whatever floats your boat, mate. I have to get a move on - night patrols with Lil ... Evans. Don't wait up tonight."

Sirius nodded shortly. Peter gave a morose sigh, looking half resentfully at Sirius, as if hoping he would offer to help him with Potions. He didn't. James looked between them in sad amusement.

"Don't worry about Potions, you'll do smashing, Pete. Fuck Padfoot - he's just a mangy mutt." James said cheerfully, heading towards the portrait hole.

"Do have a lovely time with your Lily-flower, antler-boy, I hear it's that time of the month," Sirius replied with an obnoxiously lewd gesture that would've earned a particularly stern look from Remus had he been there. James's face dropped its grin immediately.

"Cheers," James said glumly before the Portrait Hole closed behind him with a foreboding thud.

"Women problems, eh?" said the Portrait of Pippin and the Problematic Pentagon wisely, breaking the brooding silence from the next to Sirius and Peter.

Sirius wanted to laugh, but instead he gave Pippin a sarcastic salut.


End file.
